Season: Post 8

Spoilers: The First Commandment, The Tok'ra, Divide and Conquer, Beneath the Surface, Entity, Grace, Chimera, Affinity, Threads (basically anything that is remotely Sam and Jack – if I've missed any let me know and I'll correct my error)

Category: Romance

Characters: Jack O'Neill and Samantha Carter

Pairing: Sam/Jack

Disclaimer: I own nothing; if I did I doubt they would have got past the 1st episode so I thank my lucky stars I don't own them. I can pretend though, can't I?

Authors Note: This premise of this story is based on something I do when I need to clear my head, ironically this idea came to me on one of my late night walks in the rain and my brain wouldn't let me sleep until I had written it all down. So I apologise of you don't think it's particularly good but I did write it at 03:00! Not a good thing to be doing when you have an essay that has to be in a few days later…never mind, too late now. Thank God I've now finished my degree so I can take as much time as I like to do these stories. Anyway, enough about me, enjoy…

Author's Additional Note – I wrote this a while back but didn't post it cos I wanted to have a beta for this fic so I want to send big thanks to Alyssa for taking the time to read it and helping me see where it needed changing. In this fic I have assumed that each series equates to one real life year so it has been 7 years since the events of the episodes Tok'ra part 1&2 (just wanted to point this out as my beta pointed out the discrepancy between my fic and the Threads fic) hope that makes sense. All mistakes are mine, unfortunately.

Walking in the Rain

She listened to rain as is dripped onto the windowsill. Drip, drip, drip. It was beginning to rain hard now.

She knew what she had to do.

She got up, picked up her keys and walked out the front door.

She couldn't stay inside when it rained like this. Something called to her and she just had to walk in it; walk until she was soaked to the skin. She didn't know what it was but walking in the rain gave her a feeling she got could find nowhere else. Even though walking through the Stargate was an incredible rush, it just couldn't compare to a walk in the rain. Maybe it had to do with the fact that there were no Goa'uld waiting for her on the other side – unlike most trips through the gate.

Walking to the park near her house, she watched in amusement as people were running around with their coats over their heads. They obviously had someplace to be. She doubted they had ever simply enjoyed walking in the rain for the fun of it.

She had. It was something she'd started doing after her mother had died; it helped her to think clearly. She'd continued doing it over the years whenever things got to be too much. Her estrangement from her brother, her break-up with Jonas, trying to get the Stargate working, Jolinar, the zatarc incident, Jonah and Thera, the entity invading her body and so many other things that had happened to her over the years. After all of them, whenever it rained, she would go for a walk in it. She would return home, soaked to the skin, but with a much clearer head.

Unfortunately she didn't think that a walk in the rain would clear her head today. Of all the things she'd been thorough, this was one of the hardest. Not only had she lost her father but also her fiancé.

Losing her father had been hard, but she took comfort in the fact that she had gained an extra 7 years with him. He should have died when he had cancer all those years ago, but blending with Selmac gave her some of the best years with her father. If she was honest with herself, they had been the best years since her mother died. She no longer had to hide her job from him, she could share everything with him, and therefore the biggest barrier between them was removed. No, it wasn't the loss of her father that was bothering her. It was Pete.

Even though she knew it was the right thing to break off the engagement, she couldn't help but kick herself at her stupidity at letting it get that far. She did love Pete but knew it wasn't enough; he wasn't enough. She had been kidding herself that she could move on. Even since the hallucinations on the Prometheus she had been trying to move on, but it was no good; she just couldn't.

Sitting in the SGC Infirmary with her father, he had tried to talk to her. Encouraging her to go and find happiness, no matter what the cost, even if it meant breaking the rules. Even though she had played dumb, pretending she didn't understand the meaning of his words and that she really was happy, what he told her had struck a chord and she couldn't get them out of her head. Her dad knew how she felt about him and was telling her it was ok, that breaking the rules would be worth it. Yeah, Selmac really did rub off some the sharp edges of her father. The man she knew before the blending would not have considered her feelings to be appropriate and would have been steadfastly against breaking the regs; even on his deathbed. He'd been Air Force through and through until Selmac.

God, she missed him so much.

It was as though her dad knew what she was feeling, that she was having doubts about Pete. What he didn't know was that she had walked in on a lunch date with Kerry Johnson. When Kerry had walked out of his house in the middle of her confession she wanted the ground to swallow her up. It had taken so much for her to go and talk to him, even more to admit to herself that she couldn't let him go, and there he was, having lunch with her. She didn't know why she was so shocked; she'd 'moved on' so why couldn't he? Thank God for the phone call, even if it was to be the bearer of bad news.

She didn't know what to do after that. She didn't want to ruin his happiness but knew she could no longer continue lying to herself. She came to a decision. She had to break up with Pete. She knew it was going to break his heart. A few days before they had been talking wedding plans, he'd bought them a house, and now she was going to break up with him. He wouldn't understand. But she had to do it. She had to know what might happen, even if it turned out to be nothing. She had to try; she'd regret it for the rest of her life if she didn't.

So she broke up with Pete. The right decision, she knew it was. So what was bothering her? If it wasn't her dad or Pete then what? Oh she thought to herself. Him.

She'd long ago stopped giving him a name. Using his name made him real. The impossibility of a relationship with him was constant when she used his name. But these last few days had taken their toll on her. She couldn't deny he was real now. He'd been there for her when she needed him the most, like he always was. He'd held her and not asked for anything in return. She'd felt so good being held by him, She knew he was with Kerry now but she could hope, couldn't she?

So here she was, walking in the rain thinking all this through. After she had broken up with Pete the world had nearly ended. Replicators had invaded the base. She was standing right next to him, watching the self-destruct countdown. She knew this was it, unless there was some kind of miracle. She looked at him, he looked back. It would have been so easy to close the gap between them and take him in her arms, but she didn't. Part of her brain was saying that they might still get out of this alive. It was the same part that had stopped her from acting before, the part that always reminded her of the regs. So she waited. A miracle did indeed occur and disaster was avoided by the skin of our teeth, again. We'd even gotten Daniel back, again.

But somehow she didn't feel as happy as she knew she should. Yes the world was safe again, and yes, she had her best friend back but there was so much more to deal with.

She sat on the nearest bench and put her head in her hands and tried to forget. Forget him, forget her feelings, and forget the past few days.

She didn't know how long she had been sitting like that but she began to realise she was cold. She stood and began retracing her steps home. The walk in the rain hadn't completely cleared her head but she had sorted some things out. As for the rest she would just have to wait and see what happened.

As she rounded the corner at the end of her road she saw his truck sitting there. She continued to walk towards it and stopped as she got to there, no one was inside.

She turned and looked at her house, he was sitting on her step with his head in his hands. He hadn't seen her approach but as she walked towards him, he heard her and looked up.

She was drenched to the skin. He stood and looked at her. He didn't say a word as he took a step towards her. He stopped directly in front of her, a few inches of air separating them. He stared into those deep blue eyes, put a hand to her cheek and leant down.

She finally managed to open her mouth to speak, "What about Kerry?" she asked, as his face was mere millimetres from hers.

He sighed and moved his head back so he could look in her eyes once again. He didn't remove his hand. "She broke up with me," he said.

"Oh," was all she could think to say. He'd come to see her because he was single again. Well there was no way she was going to be the rebound girl. Not even for him.

He continued to look at her; he could see the thoughts flashing in her eyes. He had to make this right.

"It's not what you think. She broke up with me because she said there was something about me she couldn't live with. That something was you. My feelings for you. She broke up with me so I could be with you. She made me see that you were the one I should be with. No matter what the consequences might be. So here I am. You never got to finish what you were saying at my house, but I can guess what you were getting at because it's the same thing I've wanted to say to you. I love you Sam. With all my heart."

She looked at him. She could see his love for her reflecting in his chocolate brown eyes. She knew she wasn't the rebound girl, Kerry had been. She also knew it was time to give him a name again, make him real. Because he was standing in front of her, saying all the things she had longed to hear and there was no way she was ever letting him go.

"I love you, too." She closed the gap between them until she felt his body touch hers. She leaned up and caught his lips with her own. After that she was lost, lost in him but she knew she had found what was missing…

Jack.

Hope you enjoyed it, if you did (or even if you didn't) please supply feedback, it would be much appreciated, that way I can see if my writing is any good and can work on improving it, I'm new to this fanfiction stuff, this is only my 2nd fic. Thanks, Arrant Schemata (if you can't work it out just ask!)